Ronaldo and Messi return to international duty, and it's not unthinkable that their eternal rivalry will stretch to the 2022 World Cup.

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are back on Friday. It's been two-hundred and sixty-five days since we last saw them, each bowing out on the same day, at the same stage of the World Cup, likely with the same heartache.

Lionel Messi was in Kazan, where his Argentina side had let a 2-1 second-half lead slip in a wild, drunken shootout of a knockout game that saw France advance 4-3. Cristiano Ronaldo was in Sochi, a thousand miles away on the banks of the Black Sea, yet shoulder-to-shoulder with...

The Milan derby and Lionel Messi's performance at Betis raised overall what was a relatively humdrum weekend. It may be just an impression, but derbies tend to either be defined by fear and tension, or they break out into end-to-end brawls.

The 223rd Derby Della Madonnina was the latter, and if you missed it, you missed a classic.

Ahead of the game, it looked as if Sunday's meeting would mark the start of Inter's implosion: from the Mauro Icardi affair -- he was watching at home, a five minute...

FIFA president Gianni Infantino will be pushing for an expanded 2022 World Cup, among other things, when the council convenes on Friday.

The FIFA Council is the 37-member assembly that replaced the Executive Committee following the election of Gianni Infantino as the president of the game's governing body back in 2016. It includes representatives from each of the six confederations and is generally charged with making administrative and organizational decisions, some of which then need to be ratified by the FIFA Congress, meaning all 211 member nations.

They meet on Friday in Miami and have plenty on their plate. Three of the biggest...

Everybody is expecting a summer of change at Real Madrid following last week's elimination from the Champions League and the prospect of a season without a trophy. Club president Florentino Perez and chief executive Jose Angel Sanchez have some huge calls to make, and if history is anything to go by, they'll be making most of them on their own, albeit with input from Zinedine Zidane, who returned to the club on Monday.

With that in mind, here's some unsolicited advice from me and Graham Hunter:...

Winning has two ancillary effects. On the one hand, it gives you sporting capital. Folks point to your record and are more likely to overlook a stumble or a bad decision. That, in turn, means you can be that little bit more daring and experimental, which is a good thing.

On the other hand it raises expectations, sometimes unrealistically so, and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer experienced the former on Sunday in Manchester United's 2-0 loss away to Arsenal.

Ajax produced a stunning 4-1 victory over the Spanish giants, while Tottenham won 1-0 away to progress to the quarterfinals.

ESPN FC's Gab Marcotti predicts Real Madrid's disastrous UCL exit to Ajax will be the catalyst for major changes at the Bernabeu.

Craig Burley says the arrogance shown at every level of Real Madrid is to blame for their current domestic and European troubles.

The poison of blame, recrimination and scapegoating was already flowing through the veins of Madridismo -- the collective noun encompassing the hefty slice of humanity that swears loyalty to that other White House, on La Castellana avenue in the Spanish capital -- before they even stepped on the pitch for what would be Real Madrid's darkest night in Champions League history.

Two defeats -- at home in the past week -- to archrival Barcelona, the yin to their yang, had meant Real Madrid were out...